Jeb Bush
Historical Details
Position on Issues
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Bush has not put forward a specific plan to combat substance abuse, but during campaign stops he has talked about his efforts to expand drug courts and treatment options while Governor of Florida. Bush has also emphasized increased border enforcement activity as a potential solution to the heroin epidemic.
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Candidate's Website, 2015
"I believe that for those already in the country, we need to put in place a rigorous path that requires individuals to pass a thorough criminal background check, pay fines, pay taxes, learn English, obtain a provisional work permit and work, not receive federal government assistance, and over an extended period of time earn legal status. But any plan to address the status of illegal immigrants must be accompanied by a robust strategy to improve border security."
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Supports the Common Core educational standards
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Candidate's Website, 2016
"When I am president of the United States, I will repeal Obama's anti-gun executive orders on Day One of my administration. I will oppose legislative actions that impose unnecessary burdens on law-abiding gun owners, and I will nominate and fight for conservative judges who have a deep respect for the Constitution and the Second Amendment. "
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Candidate's Twitter Feed, 2015
"We need a balanced budget amendment to end the habitual practice of deficit spending."
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Candidate's Website, 2015
"President Obama's Carbon Rule is irresponsible and overreaching. The rule runs over state governments, will throw countless people out of work, and increases everyone's energy prices. ... Climate change will not be solved by grabbing power from states or slowly hollowing out our economy. The real challenge is how do we grow and prosper in order to foster more game-changing innovations and give us the resources we need to solve problems like this one."
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Candidate's Website, 2015
Supports a simpler tax system, but not a flat tax. "We will cut individual rates from seven brackets to three: 28%, 25% and 10%. [My plan] eliminates the marriage penalty, expands the Earned Income Tax Credit, ends the death tax, retires the Alternative Minimum Tax and ends the employee's share of the Social Security tax on earnings for workers older than 67."
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"...the next president should defund Planned Parenthood."
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Opposes marijuana decriminalization and legalization, but believes states should have the right to determine marijuana policy
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Candidate's Website, 2015
On his website, Bush proposes actions in both Iraq and Syria to combat the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh).
His proposed actions for Iraq include:
- Additional support for Iraqi forces, including embedded U.S. troops and forward U.S. air controllers on the ground
- Additional support for the Kurds
- Diplomatic talks between Iraq's Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds
His proposed actions for Syria include:
- Improving the recruitment and training of Syrian forces
- Establishing more "safe zones," such as the small, "ISIS-free zone" in the northern part of the country that is supported by Turkey
- Enforcing a no-fly zone over Syria
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"'We should let market forces, not crony capitalism, decide where to invest and how to incentivize citizens to conserve,' Bush said, advocating approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, 'rational' regulations on fracking, and opening federal lands to drilling. 'A real energy strategy could add an additional 1% growth over the long haul.'"
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Candidate's Website, 2015
Bush has a detailed plan for reforming the Veterans Administration on his website. He supports increasing veteran's access to private health care providers and states, "Currently, only certain veterans are allowed to choose their doctor - those who can't get an appointment within 30 days and those living 40 miles or more from a VA health facility. That number should be broadened and limitations to private access reduced."
Bush also supports various cost-cutting measures and states, "This includes cutting excess administrators (not caregivers) through Jeb's '3-out, 1-in' proposal, and improving practices so that we eliminate billions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse."
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Candidate's Website, 2015
"To stop American companies from moving out of the country, I will cut the corporate tax rate from 35%-the highest in the industrial world-to 20%, which is five percentage points below China's."
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Jeb Bush is generally pro-life and said, "I believe in the exceptions of rape and incest and the life of the mother, of course ... the life of the mother, not health of the mother."
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"I want to accelerate, not slow down, the enforcement of the death penalty in Florida."
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"Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said Tuesday that the government should have broad surveillance powers of Americans and private technology firms should cooperate better with intelligence agencies to help combat 'evildoers.' ... 'There's a place to find common ground between personal civil liberties and NSA doing its job,' Bush said. 'I think the balance has actually gone the wrong way.'"
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Supports gradually raising the retirement age
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Supports "repeal[ing] or eliminat[ing] the burdensome elements of Dodd Frank"
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"Guided by my faith, I believe in traditional marriage... I believe the Supreme Court should have allowed the states to make this decision."
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Other, 2015
"There are consequences when you don't genuflect to the latest secular dogmas. And those dogmas can be hard to keep up with. So we find officials in a major city demanding that pastors turn over copies of their sermons. Or federal judges mistaking themselves for elected legislators, and imposing restrictions and rights that do not exist in the Constitution. Or an agency dictating to a Catholic charity, the Little Sisters of the Poor, what has to go in their health plan - and never mind objections of conscience. "I don't know about you, but I'm betting that when it comes to doing the right and good thing, the Little Sisters of the Poor know better than the regulators at the Department of Health and Human Services. From the standpoint of religious freedom, you might even say it's a choice between the Little Sisters and Big Brother - and I'm going with the Sisters."
(Source: Right to Rise PAC)
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Book, 2013
In his book Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution (2013), Bush wrote, "states should be allowed to protect the integrity of the franchise with voter identification laws, which are supported by a large majority of Americans, including Hispanics. So long as states make it simple for citizens to obtain such forms of identification, they should have the latitude to require such identification for voting or to secure welfare benefits."
Against| Read My Position
"We don't need the Federal Government to be involved in this, because when they do we create a $1.2 trillion debt.
"In Florida, we have the lowest in-state tuition of any state, because there's accountability, just as John said. Let the states do this. You'll create a much better graduation rate at a lower cost, and you won't in debt the next generation with recourse debt on their backs."
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"I know there is political risk in supporting free trade. TPP is President Obama's biggest trade initiative. I know some political constituencies in my own political party don't favor it. But I agree with what Hillary Clinton said about TPP in 2012: This is a great deal for America."
